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Perdreaux a LA Downshire

Stuffed partridges filled with game meat, truffles, and bacon, simmered with onions, celery, herbs, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 9,057 recipes mention both. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Draw the partridges and remove the breast-bone.

  2. Mix the force-meat with truffles and diced bacon.

  3. Stuff the partridges with the mixture and sew them up.

Braise

  1. In a stewpan, place the stuffed partridges with sliced onions, celery, parsley, thyme, and bay leaves.

  2. Cover nearly with stock and simmer over low heat for about 1 hour.

  3. Let them cool in the stock, then drain on a cloth.

Serve

  1. Arrange on a serving dish in the shape of a cross.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Celery + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,188 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,506 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Force-meat of game
Forms a moist, savoury stuffing that fills the birds and keeps the meat juicy.
Truffles
Add a strong, earthy aroma and luxurious flavour to the stuffing.
Fat bacon
Adds fat that bastes the birds and carries flavour into the lean meat.
Partridges
Provide the lean game meat that is stuffed and gently simmered.

The step that matters

Simmer over low heat with the birds nearly covered. Gentle heat cooks the lean game meat through without toughening its proteins, and keeping the birds only nearly covered lets the exposed tops stay out of the liquid while the stock flavours them.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, truffle, celery, parsley, thyme):

  1. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, truffle, celery, parsley, thyme. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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